It is hard to believe that the Bush administration could be in so much trouble on so many fronts. Just in the past few weeks, Bush has found himself politically isolated on the issues of stem cell research, offshore oil drilling, prescription benefits under Medicare, patients' rights, access to the United States for Mexican trucks, new "fast track" trade authority, taxpayer aid to religious institutions, and Social Security.
When two honest congressmen, Republican Jim Kolbe of Arizona andDemocrat Charlie Stenholm of Texas, translated Bush's Social Security programinto legislation, the consequences became awkwardly palpable. The measureproposed diverting part of the payroll tax to private accounts. Recognizing thefiscal consequences of this shift, the bill's drafters also proposed delaying theretirement age and trimming Social Security checks. Republicans ran for cover bythe dozens. The Republican House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, quickly opposed thebill. Even the White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, distanced Bush fromhis own approach.
In foreign affairs, the administration may not be frightening U.S.adversaries, but it is terrifying allies. It has killed a treaty to enforce theban on germ warfare, opposed a permanent international criminal court, isolateditself by threatening to scrap the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, rejected aconvention on children's rights because of a ban on child imprisonment, andresisted giving poor countries the right to distribute cheap drugs. Bush hasdefaulted on so many issues that European leaders, in spite of their chronicreluctance to lead, are actually moving to fill the vacuum. Europe's decision tomove ahead on the Kyoto initiative on global warming, with or without the UnitedStates, could mark an important turning point in Brussels's usual deference toWashington.
In a splendid coinage, Richard Haass, chief of policy planning at the StateDepartment, declared that the administration was pursuing not isolationism but"à la carte multilateralism." He has a point. The Bushies are notwithdrawing from the world, as their Republican ancestors did in the 1920s.Rather, they are selectively proposing activist global policies that othernations reject. This may indeed be internationalism à la carte, but nobodyelse likes the menu.
Bush could be a useful bogey. The so-called (and aptly named) WashingtonConsensus for the freest possible movement of capital and commerce has beendominant in the architecture of global capitalism only because Europe followsWashington's lead. But if European leaders are skeptical about Bush policies oneverything from global warming to drugs for Africa, maybe social-democraticEurope can imagine a different global economy. Today environmental imperatives,tomorrow labor standards?
Our president is also getting scant cooperation from the domesticeconomy. This was supposed to be a "short, shallow" downturn that didn't evenmerit the label recession (two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth).By late 2001 or early 2002, the recovery was supposed to be nicely on track intime for the midterm election, with Bush's tax bill taking the credit. But don'tbet the ranch.
Corporate profits are continuing to slide because of massiveoverinvestment during the giddy phase of the boom. As orders decline, fallingprofits are translating into layoffs. In the second quarter of 2001, the economygrew at an annual rate of just 0.7 percent, barely averting recession. Privatespending actually contracted; it was only government spending that narrowly keptus out of recession. Worse is probably coming.
Bushies say this downturn is not really their fault: The slowdown actuallystarted in mid-2000, and it was exacerbated by one interest rate hike too many bythe Federal Reserve. But this is Bush's recession in two other respects.
First, it is the downside of free market excess. During the late 1990s, fansof laissez-faire insisted that deregulated markets should get the credit for theinvestment boom. But as investors in industries like telecommunications have cometo appreciate, euphoria can be as much of a curse as pessimism. In telecom,excessive investments are not paying back their costs and phone companies aredevising newly creative ways to soak consumers. Something of the same dynamic isoperating in airlines and electric power. It's no accident that these industrieswere regulated in the first place; they oscillate between ruinous competition andmonopoly pricing. Today's investment bust is not directly Bush's doing, but itreflects the larger ideology that he champions.
This is also Bush's recession because he squandered the tax cut. He emphasizedbig breaks for wealthy taxpayers after 2004 and only token tax relief for workingpeople now. A serious, front-loaded tax cut coupled with public spending wouldhave compensated for business weakness and put the economy back on track.
Can we count on Bush just to collapse of his own weightlessness? Maybe not.What keeps him going is the power of the dominant ideology and its businessallies in both parties.
Despite Bush's personal ineptitude, we still suffer from the lack of a seriousopposition program. The broader conservative assumptions of this political eraare unfortunately bipartisan--that public budgets should be balanced, thatprivate investment is superior to social investment, that markets should runrampant. It's fortuitous that the current spokesman for conservatism is a fool.But until the advocates of a more balanced society get serious about politics andbegin taking back the debate, the rightward drift of our public life willcontinue.
